Then everything goes white, and I’m falling again.
The portal spits me out hard on Wynmire soil. I dust off my knees and take stock of the situation. The crossing point shimmers behind me and then folds in on itself, the light thinning to nothing. Kaelren's last order echoes in my skull: hold the line, watch the others, keep things stable. Simple enough instructions from a man who's about to do something profoundly stupid on the other side of a dimensional barrier.
I don't look back. Looking back is for people who have the luxury of doubt.
The camp is quieter than I left it. The fire pit has burned down to embers, and someone has reorganized the supply stores, which means Vashael's been busy. Good. Idle hands in a former courtesan usually lead to politics, and I've had enough politics for one lifetime.
I find Vashael first, predictably awake despite the hour, sitting near the map table with her legs crossed and her pollen cloud dimmed to almost nothing. She looks up when I approach, amber eyes sharp.
"Back so soon?"
"Kaelren's orders. I'm to keep Wynmire from falling apart while he plays hero."
"How generous of him to delegate the impossible." She studies me. "What's happening on the other side?"
I give her the short version. Kaelren at the elm tree, the locket, the gate ritual. I leave out the part where Kaelren looked like he was barely holding himself together, because Vashael doesn't need that picture in her head right now. Neither do I.
"And Elle?"
"Still dispersed. Kaelren's trying to pull her back through the bond." I sit down across from her, feeling the weight of the last several hours settle into my bones. "If anyone can do it, he can. But I don't know what happens next."
Vashael is quiet for a moment. "Nimor felt the tremors. Two of them, both while you were gone. The second one cracked the foundation of the eastern watchtower."
That gets my attention. "How bad?"
"Bad enough that the settlements are asking questions we don't have answers to." She leans forward, dropping her voice even though there's nobody close enough to hear. "Sarnyx, something is wrong with the ground. Nimor says he can feel it when he phases. A pulling, like something is opening underneath us."
Wonderful.
"Where's Nimor now?"
"Scouting the eastern border. He should be back by morning." She pauses. "Where's Eltrien?"
"That's what I need to find out."
Nimor returns before dawn, solidifying from shadow at the camp's edge with an expression that makes my thorns prickle.
"It's worse than the tremors suggest," he says without preamble. His form is steady tonight. Whatever instability once plagued him has settled, but the look on his face says he'd trade that stability for better news.
"There's a chasm forming east of the river colony, about two miles past the new blooms. It wasn't there three days ago."
"How big?"
"Fifty feet across."
Vashael and I exchange a look.
"When I phased down to look at the structure, I couldn't find a bottom. I went deeper than I've ever gone, deeper than the Root network, and it just kept going. Like the realm itself is being pulled apart from underneath."
Damn it. It sounds like what we found when we went through the portal. I inform them of the similar chasm at the border.
"We need Eltrien," I say.
They both nod. Eltrien is the one who carries knowledge that the rest of us can't access. If anyone can tell us what's happening beneath Wynmire's surface, it's him.
The problem is finding him.
Eltrien didn't stay at camp with the rest of us. Kaelren sent him on a mission to find information on how to bring Elle back. We hadn't seen him in weeks, and I never asked where he was.
